Floss? Never Heard of It

A day or two ago, I caught a few minutes of a VH1 show about things that make men undateable. One of the things listed was a strong interest in guns. I guess this hobby will protect me from neurotic, controlling women. Hard to complain about that.

If I were a woman, I think I would put “being gross” at the top of the list. If you make disgusting noises when you eat, don’t close the door or wash your hands when you use the bathroom, bless others freely with your flatulence, don’t floss, pick your nose while driving, and drink straight from the milk carton, you should be confined in a pen for the rest of your life for the good of humanity.

Is that a little extreme? If so, I can live with myself.

The other day I was at an event where people were speaking, and there was a man sitting near the podium, picking his nose over and over. I kept thinking, “What if I have to shake that guy’s hand later?” There was just no way. I would fake a seizure if I had to. And it was very distracting. I tried to watch the speakers, but up his hand went, to his nose, over and over. I could not look away.

How do people end up like that? How can you sit in a room in front of dozens of people, picking your nose? It’s like the guys who pick their nose while driving. Hello? Glass is not opaque, gentlemen. Women can see through it.

I envy gross people, because it’s impossible to offend them. If I picked my nose in front of the nose-picking guy and then offered to shake his hand, he wouldn’t mind at all. But I would have gone out a fire exit to avoid touching him.

People who are disgusting force physical intimacy on the rest of us. We have to touch and eat and drink their secretions. We have to breathe their gases. We sit in their waste. We share their diseases because they leave traces of mucus, saliva, fermenting sebum, and feces everywhere.

It’s an asymmetrical battle, because the rest of us have no way of getting even without becoming like the aggressors. We are bombarded by their filth, but they never come into contact with ours. Maybe the answer is to raise filthy children, so they will not go into this battle unarmed.

Oh, well. At least we have Purell now.

My prayer group has resolved to read the entire Bible this year. I’m working on Isaiah. It’s good to get the long books out of the way.

I’m shocked at the many prophetic references to the baptism with the Spirit and prayer in tongues and the spiritual fruit and gifts. They’re obvious to a charismatic. On the other hand, they’re invisible to other people, which sort of proves the spiritual gifts are real. Charismatics believe God tells us what scripture means, so to us, it makes sense that other people would reject our interpretations.

It’s funny how many metaphorical references to blindness and deafness are in there. They deal with rejection of the baptism with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is what gives you eyes to see and ears to hear…about the Spirit. So how do you know you’re blind or deaf, if you’re blind or deaf to the one who is telling you? Talk about having a beam in your eye. Not even Anne Sullivan could get past this barrier.

I’m not even sure why God put this stuff in there, since the people to whom it refers are unable to receive it. I guess he is just confirming things to those who can understand. Sometimes I think he does that partly to humiliate Satan. He lays his truths out in ways Satan can’t understand, and by the time Satan figures it out, it’s too late for him to do anything but cry. I guess God is capable of doing that. The Bible says he laughs at his enemies and derides them. Look at Psalm 2.

From my reading, I got the impression that tongues will eventually be unnecessary. After all, they conceal things from the enemy and from people who don’t have the baptism. It won’t always be necessary to do that. Sooner or later, the information, like all sensitive data, will be declassified. I suppose, then, that this is what Paul referred to when he said tongues would cease. One day the Spirit will speak through us openly, about the things of God. Perhaps this refers to the Messianic Age.

I have some other ideas about the way to render Isaiah understandable, and I think they apply to scripture, generally, but I don’t know if it’s appropriate to write about it publicly. I’m not sure the ideas came from God, anyway.

Sooner or later I have to tackle the lost books of the Bible. I refer to Judges, Kings, and Chronicles. They’re not really lost, but I see them that way because we tend to ignore them. We give them less attention because it’s hard to see how they can be useful. Perry Stone has found all sorts of prophetic stuff in these books, so I know they’re worth mining. But other books are easier to deal with. The gospels, for example, are stuffed with good things, and they’re fairly straightforward, by Biblical standards.

My church is having a conference next week, and I’ll be there for most of it. I should rest up today. Tomorrow I meet with my prayer group at 8 a.m., and then I go to church later on, and then I have to cook on Sunday, and the conference starts Sunday night. Yow.

Funny “coincidence”: the conference–which is a very big deal to us–ends as Shavuot begins. This is the real Hebrew-calendar Pentecost. The day when the Holy Spirit fell on the first believers in the Upper Room. The pastor’s son is running the show, and he has a great record of praying for groups of people to receive the Spirit. Hope something happens.

I wish Christians would give up their silly dating system for Jewish holidays. I have no idea when we celebrate Pentecost this year, but we’re not even close to right. Okay, I checked. It’s Sunday, May 23. Five days off. We can say Pentecost is any day we want, but to God, there is only one correct date.

It’s not like the Saturday/Sunday worship question, which involves law not applicable to Christians. We don’t worship on the real Sabbath, and because we are not under the law, we don’t have to, so it isn’t all that important if we mislabel Sunday. Shavuot, on the other hand, is fixed by Jewish law, given to Moses by God. You can’t move it around.

I better sit down and plan out the next few days. At the very least, I should consider putting a cooler in the truck so I don’t starve during the conference.